Tokyo Police Club

Welcome to the latest edition of Pitchfork's Guest List. Each week, we ask one of our favorite artists to fill us in on what they've been up to lately: which tracks they can't stop spinning, what books they can't put down, and what new bands they've caught on tour. This week it's Dave Monks of Tokyo Police Club, who recently released the three-song Smith EP. He also celebrated his 20th birthday, attended a secret Arcade Fire hometown show, and did a good deed...all in the same day. >> Favorite New Songs of the Past Year

Muse: "Knights of Cydonia" It's kind of awesome.

Band of Horses: "The Funeral" We just played the Plug Awards, and the band that got Best Album, Band of Horses, their song "The Funeral". I really love that song, which is kind of weird because it's really a straight up song, but it's really affecting.

Peter Bjorn and John: "Objects of My Affection"

Nelly Furtado: "Say It Right" That one's cool.

>> Favorite Older Songs at the Moment

Leonard Cohen: "First We Take Manhattan" I've been in kind of a Leonard Cohen kick. "First We Take Manhattan", we always talk about-- we've never done a cover-- but we always talk about what would be a cool cover, and I think it's be cool to do "First We Take Manhattan".

Cat Power: "Speak for Me" I've been in a big Cat Power phase right now, and it's becoming less of a phase the longer it gets.

The Concretes: "Diana Ross"

Led Zeppelin: "Going to California"

>> Favorite New Band

Peter Bjorn and John We do have the same Scandinavian label as Peter Bjorn and John, but they're my favorite.

>> Favorite Song Ever

Cat Power: "I Don't Blame You" My favorite record's Kid A , but I can't really think of a single song off it, so I'm going to say "I Don't Blame You" by Cat Power. It feels like she's singing so close to you when you listen to it, like she's singing right in your ear. It's just really cool-- that whole record I love so much, and that song is just puts it perfectly together.

>> Best Recent Concert

Arcade Fire, Montreal I just turned 20 last month, in January, and the night before my birthday I was sitting in Toronto in this Mexican restaurant with our booking agent who also books Final Fantasy, so he has this connection, and he was like, "Hey, I heard Arcade Fire are playing a secret show in Montreal tomorrow night." And I was like, "Oh man, that's awesome." He said he doesn't know where or when, but it's happening tomorrow night. And I'm in Toronto, so I took a bus overnight to Montreal-- it was like a five-hour bus ride. I got there, and I hung out with my friends a little bit, and he called me at 5 p.m. and was like, "All right, in two hours you have to be at this Polish church in this part of town, and they're going to let people in." So I went there, and there are like 20 people there, and they were giving out wristbands. And it was 10 bucks, and I went in and within 10 minutes there was a bunch of people there. They only let 200 people in, and the Arcade Fire played in this basement of this church. It was really amazing. It was just after that show they played at the high school. It was really, really, really cool. And I'm still wearing the wristband, actually.

>> Last Great Film I Saw

Children of Men I went to see Children of Men , which I just went to see as a popcorn movie, and then I thought it was really good [ laughs ]. I was totally not expecting it.

>> Last Great Book I Read

Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray I don't read a lot-- I read sometimes-- but the last really good book I read was The Picture of Dorian Gray . I read it a few months back. It was really awesome.

>> Favorite Piece of Musical Equipment

I really do like my bass a lot. Which is a little bit of a nerdy thing to say. The strings, after you've been playing bass a lot you get them to sound dirty, and I really like my bass, which is a Fender '81 P.

>> Favorite Record Store

Soundscapes, Toronto I really like Soundscapes in Toronto. It's pretty awesome. I bought the Concretes record there, the one with the leopard on the cover, their self-titled.

>> Best Purchase of the Past Year

Apple MacBook I got a MacBook a month ago, and it's really awesome. None of us had laptops, but when we went to Europe it was the first time we all had laptops on tour, so it was kind of nuts. But then the battery broke in mine; I couldn't bring it on this tour, so now I'm the dude without a laptop, and it kind of sucks. But when it's fixed it'll be my favorite thing again.

>> Best Thing I Did This Year

Actually it was just after the Arcade Fire concert, I found $20 on the side of the road, and then on the other side of the cross thing there was a guy asking for money, and I put it right in his hand [ laughs ]. I'm a good man.

>> Favorite Music Venue

La Sala Rossa, Montreal It's just a really, really good room. It's not that big; the capacity's something like not even 200 people, but downstairs there's this really awesome Spanish restaurant and the sound is so good there, and it's in a really good part of town. I saw Enon there, a couple weeks ago, and we just played there with Of Montreal, and this Cold War Kids tour is going up there, so I'm really excited about that.

>> Favorite TV Show

"The Office" I don't really watch a lot of TV because I'm touring, so I don't really get a lot of good chances to. But we got a DVD player in our van after we came back from our European tour, and we've been watching all these British comedy shows, like the British version of "The Office"-- the original version of "The Office". Graham [Wright] and Josh [Hook] downloaded every episode of that, and they've been having humongous marathons.

>> Favorite Video Game

"Starcraft" I don't really play video games that much but I'm really contemplating buying "Starcraft" for my own computer. That game is awesome. It's a process, you know, it can take a lot of learning-- it's cool.

>> Favorite Radio Show

"The Ongoing History of New Music" It's on Toronto's mainstream rock station, The Edge. It's really cool because everything on that station is pretty standard mainstream rock stuff, and then this one guy has a few hours every weekend tell you all about the history of... weird new wave kids or something interesting.

>> My Ringtone

I can record ringtones on my phone, so I just record my piano playing stuff. So it's like the melody from "The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side", that Magnetic Fields song.